Arrest made in capturing at San Francisco synagogue

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Police have arrested a man suspected of firing a blank-loaded gun at a San Francisco synagogue.

The man was arrested in the Richmond Borough on Friday night on suspicion of disrupting a religious gathering, brandishing a mock firearm and causing another to forgo a church service, police said in a statement.

Dmitri Mishin, 51, of San Francisco was taken to jail just before 12:30 a.m. Saturday and held without bail, according to the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office website.

It was not immediately known if he had an attorney speaking on his behalf.

Mishin is suspected of entering the Schneerson Center on Balboa Street just before 7:30 pm Wednesday, which hosts services and classes and social activities for the local Russian Jewish community.

Surveillance video posted by KTVU-TV with no sound showed a man wearing a baseball cap, jacket and sneakers entering a room with more than a dozen people seated around a table. The man made hand gestures before drawing a gun and firing. When an elderly man approached him, he walked to the door, saluted and left.

Mattie Pil, the synagogue’s president, told the San Francisco Chronicle that her husband, Rabbi Bentzion Pil, was seated at a table with about 25 seniors who were attending a study session when a man entered.

When asked where he was from, the man said he was with the Mossad, Israel’s secret service. Then he drew the gun, said Mattie Pil.

People around the table seemed calm, but the rabbi said they were stunned.

“We were shocked,” he said. “Nobody expected it. I was about to go to the kitchen to get a knife… but the whole thing took about 20 seconds.”

No injuries or damage were reported and investigators believe the man used spaces.

A day before the shooting, Mishin entered a theater several blocks away on Balboa Street, drew a gun, and fled, police said.

No shots were fired.